


Run Full Speed

by la_dissonance



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, M/M, Twitter, ooc emotional porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_dissonance/pseuds/la_dissonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's no kindness left, Ryan will have finally gotten away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Full Speed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalejandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/gifts).



> Written because at some point, lalejandra did or said something that I interpreted as PLEASE WRITE ME ALL THE RYAN/SEAN BREAKUP FIX-IT FIC. There was definitely a conversation about the emotional tone of Darko somewhere in there.

Ryan can't handle the face Sean would make if he told him he was leaving, so he doesn't. He just leaves, does it in the shittiest way he can think of so that they won't come after him, so that he never has to actually say the words and watch them try and make sense of it right there in front of him.

Making sense of this thing is the scary part. Ryan doesn't want to do it either. He wants to get out, back to the place where things make sense and none of his feelings are too big for words, and he wants Sean to stop calling him. He sets Sean's number so it goes straight to voicemail by default, but he little missed call notifications still show up. He wants to delete Sean's number so his name quits plastering itself all over Ryan's phone, but that means his calls would ring. Ryan can't decide which would be worse.

 

When he decides that the clench of anxiety in his chest means that he's definitely _leaving_ , not just holing up being an asshole for a couple days, Ryan goes to Nick and asks if he can crash for a little while. The band -- well, Sean, Sean might come check on him if he keeps skipping practice. Tom has already sent his obligatory three check-in texts; as far as he's concerned, Ryan's probably not even in the band anymore. Sean, though.... Sean would come by. Ryan doesn't want to know how hard it would be to pretend he's not home with Sean on the other side of the door. Nick, possibly being psychic, offers Ryan a spot at his lake house miles and miles away, and a project to keep him there. Ryan flies.

 

_Had to spread my wings_ he tells twitter one night when the idea of just driving back into the city and pretending none of this ever happened is feeling particularly attractive. Once you put something up on the internet it's permanent, no backsies. It takes forever to type the thing out, and he has to kill most of the beer in Nick's fridge to get past the lump in his throat once he hits send. The fans were great, the fans and the road and the music, but there'll be other fans. Ryan's not quitting being in bands altogether, just this particular one. 

He watches replies trickle in for a while, _wtf_ 's and sadfaces, confused well-wishes and outright denials. No taking it back now, is what the replies all say; people know. After a few hours he leaves the empties and the laptop in the living room and goes to sleep in Nick's bed under his foot-thick down comforter. Technically Nick gave Ryan the guest room, but Nick's not here and his room has the ridiculous comforter and also a TV, so. 

There's no missed call in his phone when Ryan wakes up, so he's completely unprepared for the tweet from Sean to be right there in his replies, waiting for him. There's not even any text, nothing to clue Ryan in on what the link could be. He clicks before he can think better of it, then closes out of the tab the second the title of the Field of Dreams clip loads up. _Fuck_. He doesn't even care if it's not noon yet, he needs a fucking drink. He pulls up his mail app instead, and shoots off a reply to the email that's been sitting starred in his inbox, waiting for a yes or no. 

It's hardly any time at all until he's in a brightly lit practice space meeting four strangers, and hardly any time after that until he's in a van headed down to Austin. 

Once Ryan figures out that Empires isn't playing SXSW, aren't at any of the spots Tom had been so excited about booking, he maybe rubs it in their faces a little. It's just promo for his new stuff, something he'd do even if he weren't sure the only reason his old band isn't here is because they couldn't find anyone to fill his spot on such short notice. No big deal. If it has the side effect of proving to Sean that Ryan's not the type of person who walks out and still deserves his kindness, so much the better.

If there's no kindness left, Ryan will have finally gotten away. 

 

Time moves quickly after they get back from Texas. Ryan plays shows with his new band, gets drunk on the weekends, hangs out with Nick a lot. Hanging out with Nick leads to hanging out with Bill, which leads to a new video project and a new set of friends and really, Ryan is very happy. 

 

The act of leaving takes far longer than Ryan thought it would. He's still doing it months later, every time he chooses where to go or what to do based on his chances of running into Sean or Max there. He keeps track of when they go on tour so he knows when he can breathe easy, because when they're home he's stuck with navigating the minefield of mutual friends. So far it's worked, but that's not the point. He thought he'd be out by now. 

 

Some really tenacious fans tweet him when Garage Hymns comes out, asking him to confirm whether that one bonus track was really written about him. How the fuck should he know? When he left there hadn't been any bonus tracks. 

It sits uneasy with him, though, the thought that Sean could have written a song about him and put it out there for the whole world to listen to, could still be holding onto this when Ryan's done everything in his power to obliterate all the traces. He almost download the deluxe version of the album once or twice when he's alone late at night, just to see what they're talking about, what Sean's talking about if it's really about Ryan. 

The solution to that is obviously to not be alone at night, which Ryan has no problem with. It works for a while, except that apparently Ryan didn't need to hear the mystery song to keep thinking about it. About Sean, and how he's still thinking about it too.

 

Ryan's band decides they want to go back to a fully electronic sound and stop needing a live drummer, and he's fine with it. This had been a temporary gig from the start; he's already got a few more things lined up. It leaves him with a bit more free time, though, which is apparently enough free time for Nick to decide that his own next project should be finding Ryan a girlfriend.

"Not just another hookup, Ryan, you need a real girlfriend. A man without a band or a girlfriend is a loose canon. I can't let a friend live that way."

Ryan laughs and makes a dick joke, as you do when an opening like that presents itself, and then brushes off all of Nick's attempts at actual planning until he gives up. A girlfriend isn't going to be more distracting than a string of hookups, and anyway, Ryan's terrible at relationships. 

"Maybe what _you_ need is a girlfriend," Ryan says, after the fourth or fifth time he's supposed to be swinging by Nick's office to pick him up after work and ends up waiting in the bar downstairs for over an hour while Nick wraps up loose ends. It's a boring bar, and Ryan hates waiting. Also, Nick is a good friend and deserves to have some happiness in his life. 

Which is how they end up at a bar of Nick's choice, Nick complaining about how it's been too long and Ryan promising he'll play wingman.

"I'm not even going to try and score tonight," he says, patting Nick's shoulder. "It's all you, man."

Nick grumbles something about all the work time dating eats up, and Ryan reassures him that he's the _best_ wingman, he has _skills_ , Nick will see it's worthwhile, and that's where it all starts falling apart. 

This is what he'd used to do with Sean, where they got their start: going to random bars, making up random insecurities to shore each other up on, laughing as they sold each other's merits in extravagant terms to anyone who'd listen, buying themselves rounds when there was no one else to buy for and not giving a shit. It had been exhilarating, this headlong tumble into working better as a pair than apart, and it had carried over so easily into the parts of their life that didn't take place in crowded bars. 

None of which can happen with Nick, Ryan reminds himself, because they haven't only just met; he's been friends with Nick for years without them tumbling into anything. Totally different, Ryan thinks, and tells himself he's being stupid when every slightest thing makes him wish it was a year, two years ago, and he were drinking with Sean instead. Fuck, even the guy sitting two stools down from them reminds him of Sean, and the only similarity there is that he's wearing a flannel shirt. Ryan has seen probably a million dudes in flannel shirts since February. 

Nick does end up scoring that night, though Ryan's so off his game he has no idea how. Maybe the girl was really into dudes with mysteriously cranky friends.

 

Ryan begins to suspect that he never actually had to leave at all. It's not that he wants this to be the case -- he's been coasting on the grim resignation of someone who did what had to be done ever since he stopped returning their calls; he kind of really does want it to have been a necessary step -- but removing himself from the situation didn't do anything to _stop_ it, so. Theoretically, he could have maybe stayed in the band and not spent any more time avoiding thinking about Sean than he does now. 

He feels okay admitting at least that much because it's a moot point; he _did_ leave and he made sure it was permanent. Last time he heard, they were still rotating drummers, but the gossip mill is entirely unreliable and they've probably found someone great by now, someone who can play the parts better and wants to write with them and isn't in love with their singer. Well. There are a lot of things that get easier to admit once they're a moot point. 

 

The leaves begin to turn, and the change in the air clears Ryan's head a little bit. So what if he still walks down the street and catches himself imagining how it would go if he ran into Sean around the next corner? That's just something Ryan does right now. Eventually he'll stop, he assumes. Eventually, he won't dwell so much on the fact that no one's got his back, there's no one who's going to throw a devilish grin over his shoulder and wait for him to follow him out of the room. He's just got to wait it out. 

"I was in love with my best friend," he tells Bill's friend's pug as he pours kibble into her bowl. He's petsitting while Bill and his friend spend a few weeks at the lake house, which is code for Ryan needing somewhere to stay between sublets and his friends being good guys. "I'm shit at relationships," he says, "So it figures it would have ended how it did." The dog ignores him in favor of the kibble. He tells her the part about how he was in love with his best friend again anyway, just because it sounds so tacky when you put it in words like that. Tacky and cliched, like maybe it's something you're better off not having after all. 

 

When Ryan finally gets tired of rounding street corners and not running into Sean, he goes into his cafe and buys a coffee. He maybe stakes the cafe out a bit first to make sure Sean's working and they're not slammed with the lunch rush, just because he doesn't know when exactly he'll be walking through this way again. It was a kind of spur of the moment decision. Ryan figures he'll order a latte and get a solid couple of minutes to watch Sean as he makes it, then maybe he'll say something pithy as Sean hands it off, and that'll be... closure, or whatever, and he can stop imagining a million different potential versions of how this would go because he'll have a real one.

What actually happens is that he tells the girl at the counter his order and Sean hears him because he's standing about two feet away. He looks up and his eyes go wide and he says "Oh, hey," and "Wow, Ryan."

"Hey," Ryan says, wiping his palms on his jeans. He has no idea what pithy thing he'd planned on saying. 

"How's --" Sean pauses, obviously casting around for a topic. "The thing with Bill?"

"Good," Ryan says. "We're starting shooting for the third video soon, so it's been a little crazy, getting things ready and. You know." 

"Cool," Sean says. "What are you doing right now, like, prop shopping?" He's holding Ryan's empty cup hostage, not even moving toward the espresso machine.

Ryan shrugs. He really doesn't want to spend this whole five minutes making small talk. "I was an asshole," he says quickly. "About the band. I shouldn't have done it like that, and..." And he can't actually make himself say he's sorry, so that proves that point. 

Sean's eyes do this thing where they get all soft and piercing at the same time. "You should come over sometime," he says.

"I can't," Ryan says. The poster over Sean's shoulder is suddenly very interesting. 

There's a pause for a few seconds because Sean actually notices he's holding the empty cup and starts to make the latte, but once the milk is steamed he looks back up at Ryan. "They don't hate you or anything, you know," he says. "We've just missed you."

"It's just gonna be crazy busy these next few weeks with the shoot," Ryan says. "I'm not going to have much time."

"Oh," Sean says, shuffling in place. "Well, if you do get the chance, drop by. Anytime, seriously."

Ryan nods, and Sean turns back to finish making the coffee. Watching Sean, Ryan can't remember, just now, what was so big and scary that he had to leave. He just wants to _be_ with Sean, and seriously, this talking thing was a bad idea. 

"See you around," Ryan says when Sean gives him his coffee, even though he doesn't really mean it. Thankfully another customer walks in at that point, so Ryan can make a semi-graceful exit before he throws himself over the counter and demand they rewind everything to eight months ago and try again.

It's not till he's a block and a half away that he notices Sean had scrawled his number on the cup, clear block numerals not accompanied by any words. The fact that he'd done it says enough -- that he'd thought Ryan hadn't kept his number, that he still wants Ryan to have it now, after everything.

 

It turns out that Ryan still can't handle Sean being _nice_ , so what happens is Ryan gets drunk and calls Sean and starts yelling at him. He suddenly wants to know why Max and Tom never called, why they all let him fuck everything up so badly for all of them. What he wants is for Sean to realize what Ryan did, to be properly angry at him so that Ryan doesn't have to apologize in cold blood. 

Instead, Sean starts apologizing, which causes Ryan's muzzy brain to do a complete 180. 

"How were they supposed to get you to come back if I was the one who made you go away, Ryan? I fucked up, and then there was nothing -- you wouldn't _let_ me do anything, so what were they supposed to do? I'm sorry I couldn't fix whatever it was."

"No, I'm --" and oops, he still can't say it. "I couldn't be around you anymore, I don't know why." Ryan has tried to remember the feeling, that towering, nameless thing that felt like it would eat up everything he knew, but all he can remember is that he can't go back. 

"Ryan, shit, if I had known." Sean's tone is sliding from contrite to anguished.

"What would you have done? I'm --" and hell, if this is over, he might as well throw all his cards on the table. "I'm no good at relationships, I've hardly ever been in any since I dated in high school, so there was nothing you could have done. There was nothing you _did_ do, besides be too damn good for me to stand."

There's a silence on the other end of the line, and Ryan figures this is it. The real end. It shouldn't have felt like such a big confession, saying the word out loud -- they'd fucked around enough, and knew each other better than most couples who weren't Tom and Danielle, and had basically been planning on an indefinite future together until Ryan ripped himself out of the band. But if Ryan had seen Relationship and Sean had seen Really Good Friends, that was their problem right there.

"Can I come over?" Sean says at last, his voice sounding small.

"What? No," Ryan says, because it doesn't make sense for Sean to want to see him now, at the end. What would he do, point out all the ways Ryan was wrong? Ryan must be a glutton for punishment, though, because he hears himself changing it to a yes, and the Sean's laughing and saying he doesn't even know where Ryan lives anymore, is it the same place? And then Ryan's giving Sean directions, impaired by both the alcohol and the fact that he's never lived in this neighborhood before last week, and Sean's promising ten minutes and getting Ryan to say he won't go anywhere.

 

It's closer to half an hour, and when Sean shows up on the porch he looks all breathless like he parked several blocks away and just ran. 

"Hi," he says, and Ryan lets him in, leaning around him to latch the front door that has trouble because it's warped. 

"I'm not all moved in yet," Ryan says, waving at the general disorder. Most of his stuff is unpacked, but not put away yet, so there's clutter and empty boxes all over the great room. 

"Doesn't matter to me," Sean says, going for the couch and grabbing a bottle out of the six pack Ryan had brought over when he decided he didn't want to keep going back to the fridge.

Ryan perches on the edge of the couch next to Sean and watches him drink. The way he tips his head back, the way his lips curl around the mouth of the bottle -- Ryan knows what he wants to be doing right now, but he's so, so sure this isn't something that can be made better that way. He's been studying the breaking all this time; the putting together remains a mystery.

"Tell me what you said earlier," Sean says after he finishes the beer and looks a shade more relaxed.

"What part?"

"The part about us," Sean says, and Ryan shakes his head.

"It was too much," Ryan says. "In my head, it was too much. I didn't know where it was going, I couldn't handle it all by myself if it was just casual for you. If you thought that was normal. I don't know."

"Who said it was just you, though?" Sean asks, quietly.

Ryan shrugs, wishing he could inconspicuously shrink into the corner of the couch. "I'm no good at this stuff."

"I'm not the best at relationships either," Sean says. His face is really close, Ryan's pretty sure he'd been much farther away just a moment ago. "But the thing with skills is you can learn them." Then he's kissing Ryan, and oh, Ryan had missed this. He kisses back until he starts to go dizzy, then leans his forehead against Sean's, unwilling to surrender that last point of contact.

"This can't end well," Ryan says. "The two of us..."

"The two of us are fabulous together," Sean says, voice all gravelly and low. Ryan melts, because _yes_ , they are, and he's gone months without knowing if Sean's even thinking it. Sean leans into him until he's pressed back against the arm of the couch, and kisses his neck. Ryan arches, needing more, _more_.

"When you left, I didn't even let myself believe it for days," Sean says. Ryan holds his breath; he feels like he probably deserves to hear all those days narrated in excruciating detail, but not now. Or ever, maybe. "I couldn't even imagine -- and then when I started trying, it was too late."

"I never deleted your number," Ryan says, softly. "I saw all your calls." It's not an apology, but maybe Sean can hear it anyway.

Sean kisses him again. "My point is, this was never not real for me. I'm sorry that I never let you know."

Ryan feels a bubble of something light rising in his chest, something like bravery. "And I'm sorry I was a dick and ran away," he says in a rush, and then he fists his hands in Sean's shirt and pulls him close, so they can start to fix this.

"Promise not to do it again?" Sean asks, pausing just a hair's breadth from Ryan's mouth.

There's an emphatic yes fighting to get out, but this is still huge, and Ryan would be lying if he said he had a handle on it yet. "Not without warning," he says instead. "I'll tell you first if there's anything, ever."

"Me too," Sean says, and then Ryan really can't hold it in any longer; he hauls Sean in and licks into his mouth, wet and urgent. Sean kisses back warm and deep, and who knows, maybe nothing stays broken forever.


End file.
